Podcast Corner: Never mind the length, hear the quality
Donal Dineen. Photo: Bríd O'Donovan.
The norm for podcast interviews is around 45 minutes to an hour. There's good reason for this. The host and/or subject's attention can start to flag, the list of topics runs out, the rapport isn't there from the start. Think of WTF with Marc Maron, Grounded with Louis Theroux, or even the Longform podcast, a long-running series with non-fiction writers about how they tell their stories.
All clock in at around the hour mark (Maron's does too, if you exclude the 15-minute intros that you either find therepeutic or irritating). Though the Joe Rogan Experience is the obvious anomaly, few interviews need to be any longer. When they are, there has to be a reason behind it.
